Revisiting Diamine Inkvent 2022

In preparation for my daily ink swatching of Diamine Inkvent 2023 (purple) next month, I decided to swatch all of my Inkvent inks from last year. I had to do it anyway, continuing my ink swatch library work, but I figured it’ll be fun to do it all in one go, and call out my favorites. As a bonus, I swatched all the shimmer inks without shaking them to minimize the shimmer in the swatch and emphasize the base color. I think they all still had minute amounts of shimmer, but it gave a good look at what they’d look like without shaking the bottle.

The Swatches

And now the swatches in no particular order:

Keep in mind that because these are scans, some of the inks, especially the really dark ones, or the ones with shimmer, will appear brighter than in reality, thanks to the strong, diffuse lighting of the scanner. But I think these scans are otherwise fairly accurate in color representation. You can tap/click to see larger images.

And here are the non-shaken versions of the shimmer inks:

(I know that my manual method of making these ink swatch “cards” on Tomoe River paper is not the most efficient. Think of it as a meditative activity, tracing out the shapes, swatching, and hand-cutting them to size. 😆 I’m thinking of better ways to do this for the future.)

My Favorites

Again, in no particular order:

Ghost: A nice dual-shading gray. I wonder what other dual-shaders Diamine has in their regular line up?

Jingle Berry: A standard, medium berry color; the shade is not 100% accurate in this scan

One More Sleep: In my “I only like shimmer inks” phase, I did not fully appreciate this one. But once I hit my “dusky inks” phase, this one fit right in.

Deck the Halls: This is an awesome-looking, dark, reddish purple with a similar-colored shimmer. It reminds me of the new Endless Pens exclusive Wearingeul ink, The Black Cat. It’s not an exact match, but close enough to make me feel like I don’t have to buy The Black Cat right away.

Memory Lane: Of course I like this; it’s a medium lilac with silver shimmer.

Arctic Blast: This is my most favorite for the great combo of base color, sheen, and shimmer (the red sheen here looks more subdued than in reality). It gives me retro (90s?) vibes. I’m surprised I haven’t already bought a bottle of it, but I did diverge into a dusky inks phase, so perhaps that’s why.

Misses

From experience, I know that my ink tastes change (sometimes even surprising me!), so I may be revisiting some of these inks whenever my tastes shift. But there are a few inks in the group that I just may not ever like.

Spruce: This is a big miss for me. Besides being a dark green ink (not my style), it has a ridiculously strong, chemical scent of a spruce tree. I think Diamine used a scented oil or something because it makes the ink feel quite unctuous. Like a sheening ink, it lays down a very wet line. Even in an EF nib, I think this would flow too wet.

Best Wishes: This is a miss for me because it is such a dark green ink as to be black (and I don’t generally like black inks). It appears to have sheen and shimmer, but the ink is so dark you can’t see much of that in a writing sample. Pretty disappointing for the last ink in the biggest bottle.

Spiced Apple: This is a sad miss for me because the ink in reality looks like a vibrant candy apple red (not quite captured in this scan), but the gold/brown sheen and the golden shimmer combine and make the ink ultimately look poopy (as you can see in the writing sample). I wish it were just a candy apple red.

Spiced Apple (no shimmer): However, I have some hopes that if I fill a pen with a drier writing nib with this and minimize the shimmer, perhaps the candy apple red will show through more (although it still doesn’t look straight red in the writing sample 😒).

Dusted Truffle: I was surprised to see a fair amount of people say they really like this ink, as it gives me “poopy” vibes. 😝 When I first swatched it, it also sort of appeared to have a bit of a greenish tinge which made me think of goose poop. Just not appealing all around. It looks relatively harmless in this swatch, but its cool, beige tones and silver shimmer still don’t do it for me.

Dusted Truffle (no shimmer): However, never say never! I recently got a sample of Troublemaker Kelp Tea, which is a chromoshading light green ink with brown and pink (and maybe lemon yellow?) tones that surprisingly appealed to me. It definitely looks like a spring ink I’ll want to write with during that season. All this to say that the no-shimmer swatch of Dusted Truffle kind of reminds me of a brown version of Troublemaker Kelp Tea, in a sense, so perhaps I might like this version of the ink some time when I least expect it.

Olive Swirl (no shimmer): In the same vein as Kelp Tea, this olive green is on the edge of being appealing to me. It’s maybe a bit too olive-y, and therefore not as neutral as Kelp Tea, but it has a similar vibe, so again, this might appeal to me some time in the future. When I originally swatched Olive Swirl with its lime-green shimmer, the weird combination sort of appealed, but not enough for me to really want to write with it. It was more of a slight surprise that the combo had any hint of appeal for me. I’m curious how this no-shimmer version compares to something like Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrun.

Non-Spoiler Thoughts about Inkvent 2023

I’m excited to see what Inkvent 2023 looks like! I heard from @seemownay on IG that it seems there are many shimmer inks in the group again, which isn’t that surprising. I’m curious if there will be any new types of ink from what they had previously — standard, shimmer, sheen, shimmer & sheen, chameleon, and scented. I would love it if they had some chromoshaders in this year’s batch, but I suppose that’s not really that festive compared to louder shimmers and sheeners. Color-changing inks like the Sailor Yurameku inks would be cool as well.

I wish I could experience the previous Inkvent years without having to buy all the full-sized bottles. 🫤 I guess I could look at other people’s reviews for those previous years to see if I can find any trends or patterns that might apply to this year’s inks. Or, I could just wait and experience it in a couple weeks and stop trying to shake the gifts to see if I can figure out what’s inside! 🤣

If you had Inkvent 2022 inks, which ones were your favorites? Any hopes for this year’s Inkvent, if you bought one? If you made your own Inkvent, what inks would you include? (Ooh, that could be a whole other future blog post! 🤔)